So within a fortnight of my own departure, things appear to be entering a really interesting phase at Microsoft with Steve Ballmer's announced retirement "within the next 12 months". It's generated a flurry of press coverage, a significant uplift in the stock price and one paradox that is being frequently mentioned is that on his … Continue reading The next CEO
Category: Technology
A few weeks ago I was chatting with an acquaintance who works for a trade body in the marketing industry, organising events for them. These events take sponsors, and the sponsors they were working with were exclusively technology service providers. Marketers buy marketing agency services, advertising space, novelty pencils and the occasional cuddly toy, right? … Continue reading The “2017 Meme”
Here's a question - what's more ecologically sustainable... a physical telephone directory, or a phone book smartphone app? At base level, the "death to paper" technologist will say the printed telephone directory claiming dead trees and non-biodegradable plastic packaging. In retort, the telephone directory publisher will respond that (somewhat incredulously) that a smart phone uses … Continue reading Infinitely measured
A couple of years ago I wrote a blog article that was unusually well read. As a colleague at the time put it, "don't think its because of anything other than your employer", which cut my literary aspirations down to size in a second. But the article - What motivates developers? broke all of the bandwidth … Continue reading What motivates developers – two years on
There was an article published on the Stratechery blog last week about the failings of BlackBerry (and Nokia) that put in mind a piece written a few years ago by The Partners' Jim Prior (and part of his book Preserved Thoughts). Ben Thompson's piece on the mobile industry noted that, in the relatively short history of personal computer … Continue reading The power of two
As the TV-licensing fee paying father of two toddlers, one of the most consumed parts of the wealth of the BBC's output in our household is CBeebies - the channel aimed at pre-schoolers. Although I use the term channel, content is probably a better description because having been born into the iPlayer age, our two … Continue reading The public service remit
About a year and a half ago I wrote about the competitive battleground that was the living room. Eighteen months later I feel I might have been missing the point; by the look of the numbers from Ofcom's Communications Market report this year, the battle for the living room has been won, by TV content. … Continue reading The living room battle is over
The admissions from the Metropolitan Police this week about the Ian Tomlinson case, where an officer was found to have used unauthorised and unnecessary force which led to the newspaper seller's death a few years ago, mark an interesting turning point in our video-surveillance society. Whilst the UK has become one of the most videoed … Continue reading Big brother is us
There was a link to a concept for Twitter redesign posted on the Guardian Tech Blog this morning that made me ponder a broader subject - as established brands and media force deeper into their use of social media, have we seen the end of Web 2.0? The first iteration of the world wide web … Continue reading The end of 2.0?
A few evenings ago I was giving a friend of mine a bit of advice. She'd been asked to, as a "career development opportunity" (alongside her day job) to create a digital channel strategy for her organisation. One of the topics that came up was the subject of telephone helpdesks, and specifically whether helpdesk callers … Continue reading Hanging on the telephone
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